The Marshwood Songs looks to showcase a verse distinctive to the landscape of Windsor/Essex.

The title denotes and celebrates the natural environment of Southwestern Ontario’s original wetland landscape, while also characterizing its inherent liminality—both in terms of borderland and topography.

These poems operate as a record of regional duality, moving back and forth between rusticity and cityscape, expressing a conflated history and immediacy of local environments. Each poet effuses material according to the distinction of their intuitive  perspectives and cultural backgrounds. Nick Hildenbrand incorporates observations influenced by his long-standing familial roots in LaSalle, and Jovan Stefanov, a Macedonian-Canadian, incorporates motifs from his family’s heritage into the collection.

The poetry in The Marshwood Songs is supplemented by several illustrations from local artists Emily Conlon & Hrista Stefanova. Through The Marshwood Songs, each artist hopes to transform Southwestern Ontario’s variegated regional imagery into a universal tapestry.